Who Will Save the Last Primary Forests on Earth?

According to Brendan Mackey, Director the Climate Change Response Program at Griffith University Australia, and James Watson, WCS Global Climate Change Program Director, "it’s now or never if the world’s surviving primary forests are to be saved."

It’s now or never if the world’s surviving primary forests are to be saved. Will the international community act or continue to turn a blind eye to our planet’s key life support systems?

Despite their shortcomings, international environmental agreements can provide incentives for national governments and land custodians to turn back the tide of forest destruction. Primary forests, however, remain invisible in forest policy debates and oddly off the radar for most conservation organizations.

Largely free from industrial-scale land uses like logging, mining and ranching, primary forests comprise ecosystems where natural processes still dominate. Yet when we recently analyzed the world’s forest cover we found that only about one quarter of natural primary forest remains, with a mere 5 percent of this found in protected areas.